Historical Theme # 1 Poverty

Outside-of-school factors are three times more powerful in affecting student achievement than are the inside-the-school factors.

Who said this and when?

On average, by age 18, children and youth have spent about 10 percent of their lives in what we call schools, while spending around 90 percent of their lives in family and neighborhood. Thus, if families and neighborhoods are dysfunctional or toxic, their chance to influence youth is nine times greater than the schools’!

Historical Theme #2 Art Movements and Identity

The Black Arts Movement

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Video+Black+Arts+Movement&mid=BAE88C52D31D9EF29C88BAE88C52D31D9EF29C88&view=detail&FORM=VIRE5

Friday, Jan. 24, 1969 Time Magazine

…. 40 or so pickets in front of Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum last week. They were protesting Director Thomas P. F. Hoving's choice of material for "Harlem On My Mind," an exhibition devoted to "the cultural capital of Black America, 1900-1968." The show contained no paintings by black artists — or, for that matter, by white artists.

Schoener, the curator, paintings have "stopped being a vehicle for valid expression in the 20th century.” Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden denounced the show,“What's the show doing at the Met, if it's not an art exhibition?”

Harlem on My Mind

Theme #3 Community and School Segregation

The current fight to keep Public School 256 open in Bedford Stuyvesant Received an “F”

Paul Robeson High School Bedford Stuyvesant Phasing out this fall-- no incoming 9th grade

Co-location PS 20 and Urban Assembly School for Arts and Letters Bedford Stuyvesant

• 74% were eligible for free lunch, compared to 55% citywide

• 21% of students were English Language Learners, compared to 13% citywide

• 46% were overage for grade, compared to 29% citywide

• 89% were below grade level in ELA and 91% below grade level in math – compared to 67% and 70% respectively, citywide

21 closed high schools since 2000 majority Black and Latino

Invest in struggling schools instead of closing them Build meaningful partnerships with students and community

Provide an engaging and rigorous college preparatory curriculum

Support students in accessing college

Ensure a safe& respectful school climate